The Lafayette Journal & Courier has an article entitled price, demand boosting corn crop. Area farmers seem to be devoting about 15% of their crop to corn this year. Some of this, about 5%, is due to normal cyclical factors. (Last year soybeans were apparently the cyclically dominant crop.) However, prices are rising for corn, in part due to ethanol production demands.
When I read “more corn,” I’m a little concerned because I immediately think: 1) I’m not sure that corn-ethanol is the best (or even a very good) energy solution; and 2) I wonder if this will help increase the amount of high fructose corn syrup in our diet. I haven’t made a study of either issue, so I don’t know how valid these concerns are. But, I am reminded of a book I heard about on NPR, in passing. As I understand it, the author sort of wrote about people from the perspective of corn. From corn’s perspective, we’ve been an invaluable servant in making corn one of the dominant species on the planet. Corn’s march toward world domination continues nicely.
Did you word concern 2 correctly?
The book you’re thinking of is The Omnivore’s Dilemma. Michael Pollan does give us corn’s perspective but he also goes on at length about the growth of corn and various damaging effects it has on us and the environment. It don’t agree with his assertions 100%. That is, I do believe much of what he says but in some ways I think he fails to make his case — assuming that we will believe as he does that “corn is bad.” But it’s worth a read to see what you think for yourself. And it certainly will open peoples’ eyes to some of the mechanics behind agriculture policy and farming.
And I, for one, welcome our new corn overlords.
My people call it “maize”.
Pardon my ignorance, but couldn’t you tweak the corn/sugar subsidizes if you wanted cheaper corn and sugar in our foods instead of HFCS?
That’s probably right. Politically, I’m not sure how feasible it is. Thinking about it, however, it may be that using the corn for ethanol and price going up due to increased demand will end up reducing the HFCS in food.
You could also eliminate the import tariff on ethanol – I think eliminating both tarrifs and subsidies in this area would make figuring out true costs much simpler.
I have some sympathy for the person who said “We want to be energy independent – so let’s burn food!” – but I’m not sure how fair/unfair that sentiment is….
I heard a similar sentiment to the effect of, “It just doesn’t seem like a great idea to use our best half foot of soil to run our cars.”
Burn food or burn lives…
Joe –
I think that’s a false dichotomy – I hope so, anyway.
This is great for people like me that dislike HFCS. Right now HFCS prices are up so much that major soft drink manufacturers are actually considering the possiblity of switching back to sucrose, which is healtier. Sugar prices are now very close to the price of HFCS. In fact one Independant Coca-Cola Bottler (Abarta) now uses Sucrose instead of HFCS. Their containers list Sucrose instead of High Fructose Corn Syrup
I wish it was too but I’m struggling with other alternatives.
As far as HFCS, I noted last night that Jones Soda switched to sugar in their drinks.